


Blues for My Baby and Me

by Ghost_on_the_E_Shore



Category: Bunheads
Genre: Childhood Friends, Friendship, Gen, Graduation, Near Future, Plans For The Future, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26716438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghost_on_the_E_Shore/pseuds/Ghost_on_the_E_Shore
Summary: Time for the next act. As she and her friends perform their final dance together, Boo reminisces on the last year and a half in Paradise.[A frame story setting up hypothetical plotlines of a would-be Season 2 and 3]
Relationships: Cozette/Melanie Segal
Kudos: 2





	Blues for My Baby and Me

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings! First time fanfic writer here. Earlier this summer in quarantine I watched Bunheads for the first time and just loved it. Disappointed that we only got one season, I started coming here to read stories and fill in the gaps, and I started laying down my own ideas of what I thought would've happened in a Season 2 or 3. This story serves as a general timeline of what happened to the core group from fall of their junior year (when the show ended) to graduation. Framing the story is a final performance set to "Blues for My Baby and Me" by Elton John, a.k.a. the cast's Farewell Dance from when the show was cancelled.
> 
> If any of the dozen of you who still follow the show are interested in collaborating feel free to reach out! I've got a handful of basic plotlines that I'd like to flesh out but need someone who's better versed in Palladino-speak to help with the dialogue. Basically I need a Bernie Taupin to my Reggie Dwight (hmm, Elton John's made himself a theme here).
> 
> Enjoy!

The familiar piano chords echoed through the early summer air as various stage lights flashed in rhythm across a dimly-lit stage. With that, the final number of the Spring Showcase was underway. The butterflies in Boo’s stomach had finally subsided; [everyone knew the steps, they knew the blocking](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV9-QxQI2Ew). And they knew this was it.

A spotlight glimmered to stage left as [vintage Elton John began crooning out](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUHSP27h6m4) from on high.

_Your old man got mad when I told him we were leaving_

Boo watched as Sasha floated into the beam of light, elegant and poised as always in a striking black bodysuit. Somehow she could sense a playful smile from her normally-austere best friend.

_He cursed and he raged and he swore at the ceiling_

Boo glided to the middle of the stage to take her spotlight. The flowers in her hair stayed secure as she finished that first leap, bun secured by Ginny's lucky snood, her pink dress fluttering past her knees as she came to rest. Boo held her pose with that newfound confidence she’d never had on stage before this year.

_He called you his child, said ‘Honey get wise to his game’_

The third beam faded up to her left and Boo could sense the graceful movement of Cozette, statuesque as always, sporting a brilliant blue minidress that seemed to pop against her olive skin.

_‘He’ll get you in trouble, I know it, these bums are all the same’_

As Sir Elton finished his first verse the whole stage began to light up, and the three senior dancers moved in lockstep, gliding and kicking and spinning as one unit.

That first step was always trickiest, but once Boo got through that initial spin she knew she had it down pat. After all, it was her routine, one she’d been waiting to perform on this stage for a year.

_There’s a Greyhound outside in the lane, it’s waiting for us_

_So tell him goodbye, we gotta go west on that bus_

The Spring Showcase had developed organically the previous year with the opening of the Stone Center (officially the Millicent Stone Center for the Performing Arts; much to Milly’s chagrin the colloquial name had taken off rather quickly). With a brand-new amphitheater and heightened public interest, Madam Fanny and Milly wanted to strike while the iron was hot and stage as many paying events as possible. But a second ballet was out of the question; as Fanny assured Milly several times over, a three-week turnaround from one production to another would be pushing it for the Russian National Ballet, let alone a troupe of young albeit talented amateurs.

Enter Michelle, who waited for both Fanny and Milly to pause for breath – a rare occurrence – before chiming in, “What about a modern show?” Ever since Boo, Sasha, Ginny, and Mel had shadowed her audition in L.A. the previous fall they had shown interest in expanding their dance horizons. Michelle had been leading her young charges and several other students in some routines and teaching them the finer points of auditioning two nights a week after Madam Fanny’s ballet class. Surely they’d want a chance to show off what they’d learned.

Between the two Michelle wasn’t sure who said yes quicker. Fanny was delighted to see her daughter-in-law take initiative, Milly by the prospect of another town-wide gate draw. Thus, the Paradise Dance Academy Spring Showcase was born. It was an instant hit, and the highlight of the night had been the show-closing senior sendoff, featuring Madam Fanny’s soon-to-be graduates in their final performance together under her watch.

As the seniors took their final bows, backstage Boo leapt up in applause with the rest of the teary-eyed audience. She could hardly wait for her own classmates’ turn in the lights.

_And it’s all over now, don’t you worry no more_

_We’re gonna go west to the sea_

_The Greyhound is swaying, and the radio’s playing_

_Some blues for baby and me_

The chorus started and the back of the stage filled in with the younger dancers, all dressed in muted colors to avoid drawing attention from the trio out front. As Boo came to a rest from a pirouette she could make out the two figures intently watching from the front row, one tall and slender and towering over the other’s head of bouncy, blonde hair. That Ginny and Melanie were watching from the seats was the only regret of the night; Boo wished she had better treasured the final times they had all danced as a group last year.

In retrospect it wasn’t surprising that they both gave up ballet lessons the previous summer. Ginny had followed up her star turn in the school production of _Bells are Ringing_ with rave reviews as Juror No. 3 in a gender-swapped staging of _Twelve Angry (Wo)men_ , parlaying that into a deliciously wicked Velma von Tussle in _Hairspray_. The theater served as a chance for Ginny to lose herself in someone else and let off some angst; it was the perfect counterweight to a chaotic home life that only started calming down last winter when Faye Mendelsohn took a job at a health spa in Tucson and dragged Ginny’s father out of Paradise with her. Having one crazy parent in town was more than enough.

Determined to become one of the triple threats she and her friends watched in so many black-and-white movies, Ginny had swapped ballet for private singing and acting lessons from Michelle, continuing her residency at the studio.

Then there was Melanie, who had accepted that she couldn’t keep her dalliances in roller derby a secret from Madam Fanny forever. She kept it under wraps for longer than she had expected, but showing up at the studio one day late last spring with a fat lip and a conspicuous bandage on her right ear let “Cleosmacktra” out of the bag for good. Once Fanny was assured that Mel hadn’t been jumped by some street gang, she gave her rebellious student an ultimatum. The choice was an easy one for Mel: she liked ballet, but she _lived_ for the derby.

While Mel never took up at the barre again, like Ginny she was a frequent guest at the studio, in this case watching Cozette put in her work. There were so many things about her girlfriend that Mel found entrancing, but nothing kept her spellbound quite like the way Cozette danced. She wasn’t alone in that thinking.

_And the highway looks like it never did_

_Lord, it looks so sweet and so free_

_And I can’t forget that trip to the west_

_Singing blues for baby and me_

Ginny and Mel’s defections made it a small but mighty senior class of three. Much like Genesis, they truly came into their own as a trio. Sasha and Boo had been dancing together since before kindergarten and could read into each other’s tendencies like a second language. Cozette meanwhile was great at adapting to any situation; her family’s nomadic existence had hardwired that malleability into her. From a year of developing routines with each other they had become as tight a unit as Fanny or Michelle had ever seen in young dancers.

If they really were like Genesis, Boo could never decide between her two mates as to which one was their group’s Phil Collins. Sasha and Cozette were immensely talented and it was only natural that a rivalry developed between the two. Mostly friendly but occasionally heated, they constantly pushed each other’s boundaries on the floor, iron sharpening iron, and with Sasha headed to Juilliard after graduation and Cozette to Tisch, theirs was about to become a bicoastal clash.

Whenever the two threatened to combust, Boo was there to get in between and coax them back on task. Sasha and Cozette could fight over the Phil Collins mantel all they wanted; Boo was more than happy to sit back and be Mike Rutherford.

_Saw your hands trembling, your eyes opened in surprise_

_It’s ninety in the shade, babe and their ain’t a cloud in the sky_

_I called you my child, said ‘Honey, now this is our game’_

_‘There’s two of us to play, and I’m happy to be home again’_

The first solo of the three belonged to Cozette. She always seemed to draw on some unseen force when she danced, prancing and tumbling like waves crashing into the shore. That she was a force of nature on stage came as no surprise to anyone who knew her off it.

It would have been enough for the rest of them if Cozette had simply been Melanie’s girlfriend. More than just the one to bring Mel out of the closet, Cozette brought out a side of Mel that the other three had never quite seen, vibrant and confident and above all _happy_. Her smile always took on a guarded edge before, but whenever Cozette sashayed into the room Melanie positively glowed.

And Cozette hadn’t just chosen Melanie. She had chosen all of them, and she had become their friend. For someone who had never stuck around in one place long enough to make one best friend, let alone _four_ , the girl was a natural. After all, who was it who first noticed Ginny spiraling after the Frankie incident and helped put her back together? Who was it who caught Boo skipping a meal during that one bad week and helped her stop before it turned into something worse? Who was it who marched over to Sasha’s apartment after the big fight with Boo and reeled her back in, helping to save the friendship?

_There’s a Greyhound outside in the lane, it’s waiting for us_

_So tell him goodbye, we gotta go west on that bus_

Sasha’s turn to solo. She was immaculate as always, moving with an air of power, remarkable self-assurance, and just a hint of danger. Last year before the seniors stole the show, it was Sasha who most captivated the audience with a mystifying _pa de trois_ set to, of all things, “Istanbul.” [They Might Be Giants never sounded sexier](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTO10Xgl0eM).

That Sasha and Boo could even be in the same room together after last year was in and of itself a miracle. The squabble they’d had backstage at Michelle’s audition had opened the door to more frequent bickering. Sasha kept trying to put Boo back in her place, but Boo had stood up for herself and was having none of it. The tension built for months until that awful fight in March, _the_ fight that almost cracked the fault line for good.

It happened toward the end of a Friday rehearsal. Sasha had made some snide comment, louder than necessary, over a step Boo missed, and suddenly the gloves came off. It was all-out war with both girls launching verbal rockets at each other; all that was missing was Wolf Blitzer taking cover beneath the explosions.

It was the kind of fight that only best friends of many years could have – they each knew how to go for the jugular. The whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than three minutes, but by the end of it the usually-unflappable Sasha stormed out with lip trembling and eyes glistening, Michelle dismissed the rest of the class early, and a quivering Boo somehow managed to keep it together until only she and Michelle were left and she could break down in peace, sobbing into the embrace of her teacher.

_And it’s all over now, don’t you worry no more_

_We’re gonna go west to the sea_

_The Greyhound is swaying, and the radio’s playing_

_Some blues for baby and me_

Boo slid out from the shadows and joined Sasha for a duet sequence. They always made quite the pair on stage, Sasha’s elegant panache and Boo’s vulnerable grace, two sides of the same coin. That fire-and-ice harmony had always been there, but they only truly refined it over the past year, starting with the night after their fight.

Neither girl showed up the next morning for Saturday rehearsals. Ginny and Mel went over to the Jordans’ to comfort Boo, who felt worse about how she had attacked Sasha than what Sasha had said to her. She’d heard it all before from Sasha, after all, but the level of venom that Boo had tapped into left her feeling seriously unsettled.

Cozette, meanwhile, peeled off to try and tame the beast at Sasha’s apartment. She would never say what she and Sasha talked about that afternoon, but whatever Cozette said had broken through the proverbial fortress around the prickly diva’s heart. Sasha knew that unless she changed her outlook, she risked pushing away her oldest friend, as she had with so many others.

That night Sasha went to blow off steam at the studio, expecting to find it empty as always at such a late hour. Instead, there was Boo, working on that tricky step with a fiery determination. Sasha sat back for a few moments and, remembering Cozette’s sage observations, felt a rush of newfound affection for her friend. Eventually she opened the door and cautiously joined Boo on the floor, and all the nastiness of the previous few months melted away as the two danced through their routine.

When they came to a rest the words and tears began flowing again, this time in apology. Boo promised that she’d never give up on Sasha, while Sasha vowed she’d never give Boo a reason to again. The two embraced, best friends once more. They sat and talked for a long time after that, learning those last few things about each other they had previously kept guarded.

_And the highway looks like it never did_

_Lord, it looks so sweet and so free_

_And I can’t forget that trip to the west_

_Singing blues for baby and me_

Sasha retreated to the side and Boo began her solo. More than anyone in Madam Fanny’s troupe, Boo was best at radiating passion in her dancing. Her lunges had a little more follow-through, her hand movements a bit more reach. Even those in the audience who didn’t know a plié from a fish fillet could tell that this girl thoroughly loved to dance. That outsized desire had always been there for Boo, but over the past year she’d really upped her technical game too; suddenly turning pro like Sasha and Cozette didn’t seem that far-fetched.

Two events last summer most sharpened Boo’s vision of her future. First was her final rejection from the Joffrey program. Boo once again resorted to auditioning multiple times, sporting different wigs upon every rejection, a technique Fanny had helped her perfect over the years. One particularly cynical panelist noticed and didn’t appreciate, in his view, someone trying to pull the wool over his eyes. Upon Boo’s fourth try in front of the board he stopped proceedings to ask this bewigged youngster, “Who are you trying to fool here?” He dressed Boo down in front of everyone, assuring her in no uncertain terms that, short of giving herself an eating disorder, she would never get into the Joffrey.

That sort of humiliation would have wrecked most young dancers. Fanny was about to step in and admonish the man for essentially bullying her student, but Boo beat her to the punch. She had already endured worse from Sasha and came out the other side stronger. Emboldened, Boo pushed back against her elitist tormentor, vowing that “I will decide when I’m done with dancing, not you.”

Boo was a few steps from the door when she felt someone whisk past her. Turning back, she was stunned to see Sasha striding with purpose toward the audition table. Sasha had witnessed the whole exchange and was ready to send the Joffrey panel her own message. If there were any questions remaining as to where Sasha’s loyalties lay, she answered them by declining her slot in the program and calling them out for overlooking someone as talented as Boo just because of her size. “You just said no to a sure thing, so I’m saying no to you.”

The second visionary event for Boo came a few weeks later. With Sasha rejecting a return trip to the Joffrey, all five friends were in Paradise for the summer before their senior year. One night at the beach they built a bonfire. The radio was on and started playing a [Jack’s Mannequin song, “The Resolution,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UgGe50SbeI) and Boo stood up and began dancing. She improvised like this often – the results theretofore had ranged from silly to solid – but tonight she felt a surge of creativity and completely gave herself over to music.

When the song faded out she stopped and saw she had her friends’ undivided attention. Ginny was mesmerized, Melanie beaming, and Sasha had a mischievous glint in her eye that seemed to say “You go, girl.” Finally Cozette chimed in with what they were all thinking: “Where did that come from, Boo? That was _really_ good.”

_And it’s all over now, don’t you worry no more_

_We’re gonna go west to the sea_

_The Greyhound is swaying, and the radio’s playing_

_Some blues for baby and me_

The backup dancers reemerged as Boo finished soloing, Sasha and Cozette rejoined her centerstage for the final sequence, the culmination of not just a season of practice but the first act in the young dancers’ lives.

That night at the beach sparked Boo’s development as a choreographer. Realizing she’d always have to work twice as hard as typical dancers, she decided to make herself indispensable within the business. She had tapped into an uncanny knack for letting a song wash over her and coming up with nearly a complete vision in two or three listens. Fanny and Michelle took Boo under their wings, making her a student-teacher, and she workshopped her ideas in the modern class, where Sasha and Cozette were more than happy to be the Verdons to Boo’s Fosse.

It all culminated with this final dance, the bunheads’ last steps together, set to an Elton John number had Boo had loved since first hearing it on her family’s trip to Yellowstone when she was eight. Time had seemed endless back then, but things would change quickly after this night.

Last summer really had been the five friends’ last hurrah together; aside from Boo they’d all be leaving Paradise within a week after graduation. Sasha locked in early admission to Juilliard and was headed east to close on a Lincoln Square apartment – an immaculate space as always; Martha would be proud. Ginny was set for UCLA in the fall but would spend the summer in Michigan after landing a spot in a seasonal repertory theater at some small college near Grand Rapids – “Frankie said I look Dutch, so I’ll blend right in!” Melanie impressed everyone by earning an engineering scholarship to UC Santa Barbera – the aerodynamics of roller derby had ignited her own hidden passions – but she deferred her enrollment for a year to travel with Cozette, who postponed her own admission at Tisch to give Mel a taste of her bohemian upbringing.

As for Boo, she experienced firsthand Madam Fanny’s prowess in landing her students in top-notch programs. Fanny helped her get in front of the important eyes at Occidental College, and after nailing the audition Boo earned a work-study partial scholarship. The Jordans didn’t have that much money to spare, but she was able to keep student loans to a minimum thanks to the generosity of her dad’s firehouse and a substantial grant from Milly – “I expect front-row seats at every performance!” In the meantime she would get to spend one more summer in Paradise, teaching at the studio and trying out new routines under Michelle’s guidance.

_And the highway looks like it never did_

_Lord, it looks so sweet and so free_

_And I can’t forget that trip to the west_

_Singing blues for baby and me_

A reach for the sky, a sway to the left, a pirouette, a step back, one last turn to the front, and as the final chords rang out the three seniors genuflected and held their hands over their hearts in salute to their teachers and their town. As the audience rose in ovation Boo could make out the faces of those dearest to her: Ginny and Mel, her parents, her wonderful Carl. Fanny grinned from backstage and Michelle let out a few whoops in celebration.

As the three rose from their knees and grasped hands to basked in the glow of the applause, Boo shared glances with Sasha and Cozette. She could feel the love in their eyes and promised herself that she’d always keep this moment in her heart. She’d take it with her wherever she went: to Oxy, to some professional stage, maybe even back to Madam Fanny’s studio someday. This town, this stage, these lifelong friends. This was her portion of Paradise that Boo would always call her own.


End file.
